California Parochial School Hopes to Increase PD in Education Technology

This school is looking for a professional development tool to build an effective program where teachers can learn new skills and share best instructional and educational practices.

State: California

Number of Students: 406

School Type: Parochial School

Free and Reduced Lunch: N/A

Grade Level: 9-12

English Language Learners: N/A

School Context

This private school serves around 430 students. While they have seen student success over the years, the school would like to grow their capacity for innovation by being intentional about integrating technology in their classrooms and across the school. They are hiring a new Director of Technology and are well excited and equipped to change.

State of Technology

This school believes that it is important to provide teachers with the best and most relevant professional development (PD) opportunities to help instruction. They feel that their current program lacks some relevant PD in education technology and hope to streamline traditional PD with experimental programs, like an online PD program.

Currently, teachers have the ability to use budgeted funds to use for teachers who'd like to attend conferences. Additionally, they have created content for teachers to learn various software programs and develop skill to use the tools they have better.

Tech Needs & Requirements

This school believes that if they have a tool that provides a systematic approach to all of their PD opportunities, that this will lead to better engagement for teachers to learn and hone skills that are directly relevant to their instruction and educational practices. They would like the tool to be easily managed by a two person team. Teachers should be able to be grouped by department. That way, teachers should be able to meet as groups and take a course together. Teachers should be able to take classes or modules individually. They would like a central dashboard for teachers to be able to track their progress and courses they would completed (or videos watched). The tool should provide content and be flexible so that the school can also upload their own content as well. The content offered should be interactive and media rich to maximize engagement. If the content that the tool provides offered a way to track progression through a course or module through formative/summative assessment that would be a nice to have. They would like to have the tool be more than just watching videos. They would like to be able to embed video if they are able to create their own courses. They would like the tool to offer some way to comment or discuss the modules in a discussion board type feature. If the tool provides incentives like badging for teachers, that would also be a nice to have. If the tool could offer a certificate as well, that would also be a nice to have.

Teachers will be the primary users of the tool. They will work with the tool both as individuals and with small groups.

The tool must provide content and a way to upload content. The tool must be device agnostic. The tool should be able to group teachers within the tool. The tool must be user friendly and manageable for a two person team. The school allows bring your own devices. The tool should be device agnostic. The tool should provide data to show progress toward completion or results of modules, teacher review of the activity, sentiment and satisfaction data and usage data. The tool should integrate with Powerschool and Google.